


May hosts of angels sing thee to thy rest

by Miss_Mahlzahn



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-26 09:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20387632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Mahlzahn/pseuds/Miss_Mahlzahn
Summary: John Smith has never existed. But this doesn't stop Aziraphale from having pity on his soul.So he (and Crowley, who is in it mainly for the show) pay the Doctor a nightly visit.[The sappy ending I wanted for poor John Smith, which coincidentially forces the Doctor to meet beings he cannot possibly believe in.]





	1. Chapter 1

The console room was dark and cold, just like he felt, or maybe just like it was appropriate for the night cycle. Martha would be sleeping now. Maybe he should, too. Well, lie on his bed for a couple of hours. Sleep wouldn’t come, that he was sure of. Not with Nurse Redfern’s last question still heavy on his mind. Not with everything still heavy on his mind.  
With a silent sigh, the Doctor stood. He had already entered one of the long dark corridors that would lead him eventually (he hoped) to his room, when suddenly, there was a noise from the Tardis doors. The sound of them opening! Impossible.  
With a frown, the Doctor turned around … and was immediately driven to his knees.  
Before him he saw a fearsome creature, so big that it easily filled the whole console room, shining brightly with a white, cold light, that made him desperately want to avert his eyes. The creature looked like a giant, a nebula, a storm, a thousand unblinking eyes, a maelstrom of wings, and when it spoke the Doctor’s true name its voice sounded like thunder, a lion’s roar, like a funeral bell and a burning forest.  
With shaking hands, the Doctor tried to shield his head as he cowered, filled with a soul-shattering terror he had never felt before.  
The creature spoke his name again, and this time the floor under his knees shook with it.  
There was no doubt in his mind that his death, his real death was imminent, but suddenly, he remembered Martha, helpless in her sleep, and this finally compelled him to act. It took all that he had to lift himself from the floor and retreat a few halting steps into the corridor, hoping to hide long enough to access the situation, to find a way to save his companion.  
Then the booming voice spoke again, roaring in all languages at the same time, but while it spoke, coalescing to a pleasant, male tenor, that said, in a clipped English, of all things, “Have no fear, my dear boy!”.  
At the same moment, the blinding white-cold light and the feeling of terror that had filled the console room ebbed away and were replaced by a low, warm glow, like from a candle, and a subtle aura of kindness.  
With pulses still racing, the Doctor dared another look around the corner: Gone was the horrible, magnificent being that had filled the dome, and in its place, there now was a middle-aged human, male, with curly white hair and well-worn European clothing from the 19th century.  
Willing his heartbeats to slow down, the Doctor slowly entered the room. He looked more closely at the man: Indeed, the stranger seemed to emit a faint glow, but apart from this he seemed entirely unremarkable – until the Doctor turned his head. Out of the corner of his eyes he still saw the man, but also the blinding maelstrom from before, like an after-image, and he felt the terror again, but like a memory from a dream.  
“You have nothing to fear, Doctor!”, the man said and approached with a forgiving smile on his face. “I am here because of John Smith.”  
“What?”, the Doctor sputtered. At this, the Tardis doors opened again and a second man entered, tall, thin, dressed in black, with a shock of red hair, and … the Doctor’s own face!  
The Doctor reeled back in surprise. This being had copied his body! Did one of the Family escape? In one swift motion, he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and scanned it. He got no reading at all. “You are not Aubertide, nor Zygon or any other life form known, and yet a shapeshifter!?”  
“Am not!”, the Doctor-faced creature protested immediately, before it hesitated and settled for a shrug “Well, I guess I am, but I shift only between two main shapes, so that doesn’t count, does it?” With that, it sauntered leisurely through the console room.  
“Please don’t mind Crowley!”, the blonde man interjected. “As I said, I am here because of John Smith, who in his hour of extremity cried out unto God, and the Lord heard his plea.”  
“Oh, shut it, angel, it was you who heard that Smith fellow!”, the one called Crowley drawled, as he spread himself over the small sofa that stood behind the console.  
The blonde one managed to look a bit guilty for a second, but his answer sounded stubborn.  
“Of course the Lord heard his plea. Not a single sparrow and all! And since I heard him and I am an angel of God, who’s to say that She didn’t send me as Her answer! Anyway…” and with this he returned his gaze to the Doctor, “I am here to bring salvation to the soul of John Smith, who gave his life to save others. Let me usher him into Heaven.”  
The Doctor was taken aback. An angel, sent from a god, to collect a non-existing person, for an afterlife? He had encountered many figures of myth before, surely, but for a reason he couldn’t pinpoint, this felt different.  
****************  
The suited-up guy with Crowley’s face frowned first at Aziraphale, then at Crowley. “There is no… that is, John Smith has only been… there has never been a John Smith, other than me!”, he uttered finally.  
Crowley rolled his eyes. The poor fellow still hadn’t caught on.  
“Listen, Doctor, Theta, whatever you call yourself today, we know. We gathered as much from Martha…” At that, the Doctor-guy became agitated again and turned to run, so that Crowley held up his hands in appeasement. “No, no, we didn’t do anything to her, just took a look at her soul when we met her in Smith’s house. Just wanted to know what’s going on, with Smith’s soul being simultaneously three months and 900 years old. Bit odd, even for us. Especially when he looks like he’s my naïve baby brother!”  
The Doctor still looked alarmed, but stayed in place. Crowley took a moment to glance at the guy’s mind, and immediately broke into an astonished grin. “So it is true, you are a man from Gallifrey, who would have thought? Takes me right back. Sky’s orange, innit?”, he mused.  
“Takes you right back? What do you mean?” Aziraphale sounded confused.  
But Crowley just waved his hand nonchalantly. “Doesn’t matter, that was a long time ago. Anyway, what about that soul you came for, angel?”  
Aziraphale hesitated a moment, but then nodded and turned again to the frowning man in the suit.  
The man seemed alarmed, but tried to mask this by standing straight and plunging his hands into his trouser-pockets. “You say you are … what …, angels?”  
Crowley grinned: “Well, he is one, I am a demon, but I’m just here for the show, so don’t mind me.”  
The Doctor narrowed his eyes: “An angel, and a demon, and you expect me to believe that?”  
“Actually, no, that is not a requirement.”, answered Aziraphale. “As an alien to this world, you probably don’t adhere to any of Earth’s faiths anyway, I suppose, but nevertheless, I am an angel of the Lord, our God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all Things Visible and Invisible – which, incidentally, includes your planet, and – in fact - you yourself as well, by the way. And I am going to bring John Smith’s soul to his eternal rest, whether you believe it or not. I just thought I should tell you, as a common curtesy.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two and a half months earlier, Crowley and Aziraphale meet John Smith, who's strange soul leaves them baffled.

Two and a half months earlier:  
In hindsight, the angel did declare it to be divine providence, but when Crowley first came about the man, the demon was sure it was just a coincidence. True, in his experience, coincidences like this were astonishingly rare, but come on: What would anyone have gained by giving a poor bloke his face and voice and then doing nothing about it?  
Because after Crowley had gotten his first glimpse of the guy, he had moved Hell and earth, so to speak, to find out what this was all about. When, after probing into every available direction, he didn’t find any inkling that this was the work of Below, and frankly, when nothing sinister happened at all both to the guy nor to himself, he started to write it off as a harmless – and strangely amusing – oddity.  
Of course, when he mentioned it to the angel, said angel was not amused at all. Aziraphale had handed him a cup of tea (no biscuit; after their row in the 1900s, they were still mostly on business terms, much to Crowley’s chagrin) and admonished him that just because the fellow’s face was not of Hellish origin, it might still be a trap, maybe from Heaven.  
Crowley, who by then had followed the young man in questions for about a fortnight, dismissed this as nonsense: He had seen Smith starting to engage with the school’s nurse, and while Heaven boasted about Love at all times, he knew for certain that no one above would have been able to fake the emotions the man was, quite frankly, displaying on his sleeve.  
But Aziraphale was not to be convinced. And so, they both made the trip to the school, arriving just before the beginning of the first term. They had agreed on a complicated cover story, them being the rich (and in Crowley’s case, very eccentric) uncles of a potential pupil (whose name and upbringing they had both painstakingly memorised), wanting to take a look at the school before deciding.  
After seeing Crowley’s brand new Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, however, nobody asked them anything, instead treating them like the obviously very rich and hopefully very generous potential gentlemen they were.  
Two or three of the staff inquired politely about any connections between Crowley and the new teacher, Mr. Smith, due to the resemblance. Since Crowley feigned surprise at hearing this, they hastily apologised and retreated. Soon, Crowley spotted his doppelganger and pointed him out to the angel.  
“Gosh, you’re right, the spitting image! Could be your s… ”, breathed Aziraphale to Crowley while approaching the young man in question, and then, with a scandalised, but very quiet gasp, “Oh, Crowley, you didn’t, did you?”  
“I did what?”, Crowley whispered back, confusedly. What on earth… oh! Oh!  
“No! I bloody well didn’t!” Of course, he had bedded humans before, mainly in order to carry out corruptions, but it had been ages since it had been women, and even then, he was not an idiot and had made sure that absolutely no pregnancy could ever come from that, remembering Heaven’s views on Nephilim in general and the offspring of Fallen Angels in particular - and also not being keen on fatherhood due to unresolved parental issues of his own.  
Nevertheless, the Smith fellow, who just turned around with an open smile to greet them, could have been his son or even his twin, apart from a couple of years and the hair colour.  
When the young man saw Crowley, his mouth fell open slightly, but he recovered quickly.  
“Good evening, sirs, how do you do?”, he greeted them politely, while a colleague of him, named Muller or Mulder or something, who had met Crowley before, introduced them.  
“How do you do?”, Aziraphale replied courtly, while Crowley just grinned and waved at Smith.  
Smith nodded at them, then opened his mouth, but hesitated. Crowley’s grin grew wider, but when Aziraphale nudged his arm, he finally took pity on the young man. He pointed to Smith’s face, then to his own, saying “Probably just a coincidence. On the other hand, I might just be your long-lost fifth cousin, I suppose. Maybe your grandfather got around a bit, eh?”  
The teacher’s smile wavered a bit at that, but Crowley had to give it to Smith, after swallowing involuntarily, Smith bravely answered “I couldn’t possible comment on that, never having met him, I’m afraid. But maybe there is an obscure connection? I remember having been told that we have quite the extended family in Scotland?”  
While Crowley engaged Smith in a discussion of various – in Crowley’s case increasingly oddly named – cousins, Aziraphale took a look at the young man’s soul.  
And blanched: While a completely normal soul at first glance, at second glance this soul was not possible in the slightest – first of all it was brand new, younger than a newborn’s, not even three weeks old, while at the same time, it felt impossible ancient, nearly millennial. Then, the man’s memories were an odd mixture of truths, half-truths and complete fabrications, with the most basic ones – parents, friends, place of origin etc. – the worst of them all. And last but not least, the biggest part of the soul seemed to be barren and in shadows, as if someone had wiped it clean of all features and covered it in darkness.  
Since Crowley was still talking, now about his family’s Norwegian branch, Aziraphale cleared his throat at him.  
With another grin, the demon excused himself to Smith and – snatching his fourth glass of champagne from on of the waiters – accompanied Aziraphale to the outside garden.  
“So, any signs from Up High upon the poor fellow?”, he started, but Aziraphale cut him off immediately.  
“Have you ever taken a look at his soul?”, the angel asked aghast.  
Crowley shrugged. “I meant to, but – you know – apart from sniffing out weaknesses and hidden desires, there’s not much to see for us lowly demons. And in that department, nothing unusual, a bit of envy, a bit of insecurity, repressed libido, of course, slight fear of going mad, but then again, who wouldn’t, teaching all those brats?”  
Aziraphale huffed. “I need to sit!”, he exclaimed and strode quickly to their car.  
After they both were in and the doors were closed, he explained to Crowley in detail what he had seen in Smith’s soul.  
“But not a touch of Heavenly interference on him! Definitively nothing angelic nor demonic has ever tried their hand at this soul!”, the angel ended his description.  
Crowley remembered to close his mouth before he took a deep breath and let it out in a baffled sigh. Then he shrugged again.  
“Alright, now I’m intrigued!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, not a native speaker. Would be happy to have some of the mistakes pointed out to me, or maybe for someone to beta. Comments very welcome, too, of course.

**Author's Note:**

> Non-native speaker without beta-reader. Would be happy to have mistakes pointed out and/or to have my work beta'ed. Comments very welcome, as well, of course ;-)


End file.
